Unidentified "exe" files breaking TCP/IP networking

Hi,

This is very strange. On Saturday one of my co-workers laptop lost its network connection. After taking a closer look something was badly broken with the TCP/IP driver/component. ipconfig generated an error and would not show anything. Using Hijackthis I found a file "t9syln8rojqp.exe" that was being run on startup. The file was in the System32 folder of Windows. I stopped it from being started using Hijackthis, rebooted and it was back. To cut a long story short I had to reload the OS.

Now this evening I was called out to somebody who lost their DSL connection. To my surprise I found exactly the same symptoms but this time the file is "8gc.exe". I haven't attempted any further repairs but I can say both machine were running TrendMicro and it doesn't flag the files. Avast doesn't either. This has to be something bad I just don't know what it is. Both machines stopped working this weekend. very strange!

I have attached the files in a zip file. Both were renamed to "ex_" just in case someone runs them by accident.

Can anyone shed some light on what these files are?

Thanks
Wayne